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Ong Ravana
"you know how they say" cocaine is one hell of a drug? "Ong Ravana was a crazy place!" - Ishva Izanagi al-Sirr So lets get super honest. you know that thing that happens when someone tells you not to do something, and you do it anyways? like "hey man, you should totally not do that X, Y, Z, thing you're thinking of doing. i dont think you're ready for it yet..." and yer just like "no its cool i've never done this X, Y, Z thing in my life but i think i can pull it off! i got this." and then you fail. you fail hard. all the harder for every person who tells you i told you so. and for me there was one. a girlfriend came and gone who had tried to warn me that this would consume my next 30 years. she knew because she had a friend who had just given up such a pursuit. And thus it came to be that at the washington midsummer ren faire that i ran into an old friend. one man, through whom i met another, and another, and... another... where as most crews start with 5 to 10 members our first call to join the crew landed us around 60 people. first time around... i wasnt prepared. meetings were held in a basement, where i lost a year of my life, that had taken a habit of flooding and causeing more structural damage than it was worth. our meetings pulled about 30 at a time. we just couldnt handle that many people. not when the message was "come be a pirate, get drunk and get laid!" and yet time and change took their tool. the next seadog nights festival came around - 30 people in tow, networked and proven that they can hang on for this wild ride. and there i was with 'insta-crew' the term people used for those who show up with a giant group no one had even heard of before, let alone their leader. and there i was, having a blast on my own. but the thirty i brought with me? suffering heat exhastion, tempers flaired, they were enven inccapable of feeding themselves when a wallmart was no less than a mile away. the next year with ong ravana was better. natrually cliques formed and so did groups, suddenly a tavern, a cassino, a slave auction, almost like a wild acid trip, i could believe what had happened. people had amazingly took hold of themselves, made personas and organized themselves. it was amazing, and terrifying! i couldnt tell you all the crazy things that happened. how far some men could puke, how beautiful some women were in the nude, the creativity that burst forth from the most quiet of people. it was chaos, but there was something more. the whas a creative loving spontineity that i felt mankind was ment to have! ruturning to reality was hard. how do you simply accept the crappy world we live in after seeing how amazing people can be. you begin to analyze faces and wonder what gifts they held just a short measure beneath their skin and the bullshit exteriors they present. i couldnt handle it. i had to have more, and that ment i had to BE more. i had to be that light to show people what they can be without outshining them myself. kanye said "human beings in a mob. whats a mob to a king? what a king to a god? whats a god to a non beliver who dont believe in anyting?" its just a man, and the process repeats - people sprout off trying to become gods, looking up to ascend instead of their path. well im no better. culprit and victim of the same sin - thats what karma is! eventually i got burnt out. i had gotten so caught up in the ideas that people said were neccessary that i lost sight of my own dream. i gained something however. valuable expreience and insight. the expreince perhaps i should have gained by following friends advice and just start a cool little 5 person crew. but i dont think i'd be where i am now. if every inventor succeeded on the first try i dont think we would push ourselves hard enough to be where we are now. or as rock lee says "konoha no renge, nido saku!" the lotus of konoha blossoms twice! or in otherwords. you pick yourself up and you try again. and thats what im doing here. taking the exprience i gaind in how to build something amazing and navigating the chaos, and at the same time inspiring other to do the same. and as a whole, as a community we can all flourish. if the problem is that its always that its "us versus them" i'll be the first to lower my arms and learn to ride the flood. i think theres a great power to be found when people cooperate and work as a whole with a cooperative vision for the future. but look at that, if i keep talking im gunna start getting into phase 2 of the larp. 'Mabool' - no worries we all will see how to get to that point when we are ready. what? were you expecting a tale of woe and drama? all the crazy secret juicy details? nah, you get that when i write an auto-biography. gotta be famous for that first.